THE Labour peer and former agriculture minister Lord Donoughue is introducing the Wild Mammal Protection Bill in the coming months. The Bill will make it a criminal offence to deliberately cause cruelty to a wild mammal and hunting will not be exempt.

This is a radically different approach to the Hunting Act which is not based on cruelty.

The antihunt group The League Against Cruel Sports claim that 66 per cent of hunts that it monitors are breaking the law. However it has only been able to secure a conviction in three prosecutions against hunts.

This suggests that the current law is not working.

One of the chief problems with the current situation is that the law does not have the consent of the hunting community it is meant to apply to.

I think that the new legislation will have that consent because no one can argue they should have the right to be cruel.

I hope that groups like the RSPCA and LACS will support the Wild Mammal Protection Bill and also the proposed Hunt Regulation Authority. This is an opportunity for all parties to work together to eliminate deliberate cruelty.

Giles Bradshaw

Rose Ash